


Left With the Pieces

by Storm_Buji



Series: Kitsune's Seals' [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Family Dai-nana-han Team Seven (Naruto), Family Kurama & Uzumaki Naruto, Fox Summons, Friendly Kurama, Fuuinjutsu Master Uzumaki Naruto, Kitsune Uzumaki Naruto, Other, Smart Uzumaki Naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 19:31:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10725753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storm_Buji/pseuds/Storm_Buji
Summary: Masks'. Many used them everyday, whether to fake happiness when they weren't really happy, or to hide their emotions away because they didn't want people to worry about them. Naruto had learned from the people, had learned how to layer masks' as a safety net. It was to protect himself. And now his safety net that was laid with such care and precision, to protect him from the people who hated him, from the drunken mobs that would sooner torture him in the streets than to go home to sober. Was becoming the very thing that was hurting him, more than any of the people and their hatred.Secrets had to come out one way or another, his were no different.So his complex mask was going to shatter and make a mess. And in the end once they've left him he'll be left with the pieces, with no hope of putting them back together.





	Left With the Pieces

Naruto was three when he figured it out. A mask of a happy-go-lucky dobe was integral for his survival, it was a sad realization. One that left him shivering in his bed sobbing quietly with only the rumbling voice in his head for comfort.

His scared arms wrapped tightly around himself as he tried to get used to the loud blaring music coming from the club below him. The Hokage didn’t know where he was so the comfort of the ANBU he would normally have at night was gone. His Jiji was too busy to have to constantly protect him.

And it was that realization that had left him sobbing, he was the reason his Jiji was becoming so tired, he was the reason Jiji was so busy when he didn’t need to be. It was his fault. Just like everything else was.

Naruto had looked up then to the other occupants in the one bedroom they were given out of the four bedroom apartment. The six of them split between the two beds, it wasn’t easy the six of them being shoved together. They were street rats, they didn’t like abrupt change they couldn’t control.

They had learned to rely on themselves, now though. Now they were a mismatched little family, and they were rats. Every one of them. So it was really no surprise that all of them had become very protective of one another.

That’s what happens when you put orphans that had been living on the street in a house with only one adult that was never around. They take care of one another, it was what they did.

So it was no wonder that when Naruto looked up at them, that they decided to join their youngest family member on the bed, curl up around him and cry with him. It wasn’t until later after their crying session that he was told his eyes held the bone wary exhaustion, one that made any old veteran shinobi wince at.

It wasn’t a look a child should carry.

It was when he was three that he started constructing his mask. Hiding his own true quirks within fake ones, practicing the blinding smile so no one would look to closely Tenten helped him with that one she was the oldest female and already in the academy. She knew how to help him make it look real.

It was when he was four that they learned he soaked information up like a sponge, and Naruto had sighed and slumped down. They were confused at that and he couldn’t blame them, he just now had to show them why he had to hide his now named intelligence. It would only get him hurt in the end.

They hadn’t liked it, what had happened when he showed them. They had understood yes, that didn’t mean that they had to like it, Ruka was the next one going to the academy. They had decided while Naruto was healing that they would all go to the academy. That they would all become shinobi.

Naruto hadn’t really liked that, it just meant he had to hide a whole lot more.

He was almost five when the twins Miha and Myhu went to the academy, Tenten also started letting them read her scrolls she brought home on how to be a shinobi. Naruto was really drawn to fūinjutsu. Tenten had smiled at him promising to bring more scrolls back home after he had devoured the three she had brought.

Naruto had smiled and nodded happily, while he mentally noted down more things he had to hide.

It wouldn’t do him any good to parade around. That would just get him more assassination attempts.

He was five when Naiomi went to the academy next, it was also when he was five the Jiji had finally ‘found’ him. It took him two years and in that time Naruto could see that he rested, he looked better. His eyes didn’t have the minimal bags a shinobi gets, his shoulders weren’t dropping with invisible weight.

And Naruto had felt happy, at least he did until he remembered children especially a dobe wasn’t supposed to be able to see the minuscule details that others couldn’t see. Jiji didn’t even notice he was too busy reaming into Naruto about disappearing, Naruto knew he did it out of worry. There was a reason he called the _Hokage_ Grandpa.

And all the while he kept a blinding smile on his face. Mentally taking notes on what he should do and not do.

He went to the academy early, stuck in a class that held all of the Clan brats. And he knew he was sulky every time he went home, exhausted by the day of wearing a mask and being away from his ragtag family. They were all in the same area, but Naruto had ended up in the more advanced area with brats who had everything handed to them on gold platters.

That’s when he knew Jiji had a way of watching him. Naruto hadn’t liked that. Naruto had made his mask for a reason and if his Jiji was so adamant about forcing it to fall and shatter in roundabout ways, well than Naruto had his work cut out for him.

He wasn’t going to let someone even if it was Jiji, shatter his safety net. It had been keeping him alive and out of the hands of the hospital and death. Although death never really seemed to come, the giant fur ball fox in his head kept scaring it off.

That was a strange meeting all on its own. The fox had called him Kit, and if he was remembering correctly that normally means young fox, and given the fact that the _Kyuubi_ was calling him Kit must mean something.

It had to mean something. He just couldn’t figure it out yet. The Kyuubi had given him a found look when Naruto had just stared at him like he was trying to figure out the most complex puzzle to ever exist.

Which in a way it was true. He was a Bijuu after all. There really wasn’t much known about them.

It was when Naruto was six that he started noticing that he could feel peoples’ emotions and sense people from anywhere in the village. The fox just mumbled about something called Chakra sensing and empath. Naruto couldn’t bring himself to ask Tenten to research those, he did however train with them.

He had the skills he wasn’t going to let them go to waste.

It was also when he was six that he noticed two of the Clan kids in his class were _different_ and that word barely covered just how much they differed from the rest of their Clan bunch. There was also the strange pink haired civilian girl who constantly seemed to be fighting with herself, Naruto hummed at that and made a mental note to ask Tenten.

The days were easy really, with how smart he was and the fact that Tenten and the others brought home things for everybody to work on together. It was called family bonding. The Kyuubi had snorted at that and told him he chose well. He still doesn’t understand what the Kyuubi was trying to say.

It wasn’t until he was seven that they actually started learning all of the basics of the shinobi lifestyle. And it was then that Naruto had figured it out.

His carefully crafted mask and his intelligence was keeping him alive in more ways than one. And he vowed.

Vowed to never let it shatter.

**Author's Note:**

> This just came and refused to leave me alone, I found myself typing this out instead of chapter four for Eagle's Creed and Lion's Pride, like literally typing this in the box for chapter four. My head is still sore from the frustrated dropping of it onto the table.
> 
> And just a warning I haven't watched Shippuden yet, and I watched Naruto years ago so my memory on how the plot line goes or any names is spotty at best, so do not expect this to go anywhere close to canon. Also I know nothing of the Fuuinjutsu, so if any of you want to help that would be greatly appreciated. Any offers of where to look or creations of your own and their uses, anything really.


End file.
